Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5

Original poster

to HATE taking my children swimming with a PASSION, hatred of a degree that makes me a madwoman?

122 replies

Oliveoil · 04/05/2008 21:39

get up early
breakfast
out
in the changing room
cold
OTHER PEOPLE
in pool
cold
OTHER PEOPLE
drag the time out until I can stand NO MORE
out
cold
OTHER PEOPLE
home
baths x 2
wasted morning

repeat every week

that will be £10 please (parking, admission, choc from machine after)

OP posts:

Needamassage · 06/05/2008 17:17

HATE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AND having to remember to shave legs beforehand and suck in stomach whilst walking around pool.

Oh, and DS clinging to me for dear life and digging his sharp toe nails into my thighs...

dustyteddy · 06/05/2008 17:31

this thread is hilarious

Don't think I shall EVER take my dc's swimming having read this. I had never thought about how gross it really is, yuck!

krang · 06/05/2008 19:55

I love swimming.

In my nice expensive clean health club pool.

Not in the local ones with cockroaches in the changing rooms and mould up the walls.

Orinoco · 06/05/2008 22:13

Message withdrawn

mountaingoat · 06/05/2008 22:53

Can anyone tell me - do pre school kids, and particularly babies really get anything out of swimming at a swimming pool, that they don't get from splashing around in a paddling pool/ bucket in the garden, or in the bath?

I HATE swimming with the kids for all the reasons described already in this thread (My children are 4 yo and 6 months) yet all the mums I know seem to do it. My MIL counts my failure to take mine swimming as one of my many failings as a mother.

I can see that my 4 yo may now get something from swimming lessons but what about babies?? Mine adores her bath, but that is 2 inches deep and warm. What more would she get from expensive stressful swimming lessons?? Please tell me. Fully prepared to be persuaded because at the moment I just don't get it......

AbbeyA · 07/05/2008 06:40

I think they get a tremendous amount from it. It is nothing like splashing in a bath! I took mine from babies.It gives water confidence and I got them swimming very early-it is a skill that might save their life one day. You can't go underwater in the bath for a start! I didn't learn to swim until I was 11 and am still not keen on going underwater so it is wonderful to have DSs who don't think twice about diving to the bottom or jumping in. I am really surprised at the amount of posters who don't like going!

krang · 07/05/2008 11:36

Mountaingoat, I have been taking my 2yr 3month old to swimming lessons since he was four months.

He can now jump in, go underwater (we put them underwater from the first lesson), swim a stroke or two, and is very happy and confident in the water. He will be swimming unaided by the time he's three. He also loves it and will play happily in the pool for as long as I let him.

I wanted him to learn asap so he never develops a fear of water. It is much, much harder to teach a four year old who's never been swimming before. I also wanted him to swim so he can be safe. And having experienced school swimming lessons, I know that if a child doesn't already know how to swim, they are generally a chaotic waste of time.

But it's up to you. I enjoy going swimming with him - it's one of our fun things we do together. I would never tell anyone else they were a bad mother for not doing the swimming thing. Like I say, I'm lucky. I can afford a nice health club.

Public swimming provision in this country is absolutely shit and is getting worse - pools are being closed all the time by money-grabbing councils and many of those that are left are being deliberately run down so they can sell them off to developers. And then the government preaches to us about obesity and wonders why we don't like taking our kids to far-away, shitty, smelly, filthy pools. And then spends £12 billiion on the fecking Olympics. Grrrr. Sorry, rant over.

sagitta · 07/05/2008 11:48

Mountaingoat - I really wanted to take DD swimming when she was a baby, but she had terrible excema. I only started this winter when she was 2 - and she is as confident in the water as she could be - she goes under, jumps in, can do a stroke or two. I don't think she'd be better at it if we had been going regularly for the last couple of years - her standard is the same as other kids who have been going since they were babies. IMHO I don't know if your baby would get much more out of it that in a paddling pool...

MUM23ASD · 07/05/2008 11:51

yes i hate it too...feel in awe of those mums who manage it every week!!!
(i'd struggle simply locating all the kit needed...let alone actually go out the door1 Everytime mine go with DH...i have a nasty habit of finding the 'last weeks kit' still in the bags...just at the moment he says...2i'll take them swimming NOW..if you get their kits together!!!!"

!!!

Niecie · 07/05/2008 11:53

I hate swimming with a passion and haven't ever taken my two boys. Neither of them wants to do it anyway. DH keeps saying he will take them but never has so it will be up to the school to teach them. They are less likely to throw a tantrum with their teachers so it would be easier all round.

Quattrocento · 07/05/2008 12:08

I agree that it is dirty, unsalubrious, smelly, cold, uncomfortable and decidedly unhygienic.

But you still haven't taken my advice and sent them to swimming lessons - then all you have to do is take the Times with you and read. Or do the crossword. Or doze. They'll wake you up when they need a lift back.

AbbeyA · 07/05/2008 13:01

I think that if you don't want to go yourself then you should pay for lessons and sit and read a paper with a coffee. It is an essential skill and may literally mean the difference between life and death.

casbie · 07/05/2008 13:04

we have three kids and now they are all at swimming lessons...

some ideas:
always have both of you go, always wear flip-flops, have a swimming bag for each child...

choose a nearby hotel for swims as a family they are usually the same price as local swimming pool, but much nicer facilities!

: )

triflenorks · 07/05/2008 13:41

DD could swim at 4, and she had swimming lessons since she was 6, she is 13 now and by yr 6 she had passed her swimming level 12, she is not a fast swimmer by any means, but she has good technique and she regularly swims 3 miles which takes her 2.5 hrs. (£50 a term)
DS on the other hand has CP, he has had private swimming lessons since he was 4 (at £15 PER HALF HOUR!!!!) he has had 5 yrs of lessons and last week he swam his 25m on his back. It costs a fourtune, you melt while waiting for them, and feel soggy your self when you get them dry, but ... it is the best thing I have ever done for both of my kids, because to paraphrase my ma, we live on an island dont you know!
My tip, two lots of cosies, and as SOON as you get back re pack the bag, then you can grab it and go.

casbie · 07/05/2008 16:25

ahh, yes, two swimming costumes at least!

we are by the sea also, yet had to wait 18mths for DD2 to get a place for swimming lessons.

it might be a pain in the *rse now, but when they can swim they can take-up surfing, sailing, canoeing, windsurfingetc they will thankyou for it in the end.

: )

Quattrocento · 07/05/2008 16:39

I also think it is a mistake for parents to try to teach their children to swim

even if they are very good teachers and with very good technique themselves

they are quite likely to get their children into bad habits

swimming lessons are a win win

mine swim like fish now. I like watching them. They swim so much better than I do (not hugely difficult) and their strokes just look so good. I'm glad about that.

cluckyagain · 07/05/2008 16:42

SO, so, so glad I found this thread - I thought I was the only person on earth who hated it with an extreme passion. My dh takes the p whenever we go (very infrequently if I can help it) and we're going to centre parcs soon - I can't avoid it there........... Harumphs off in miserable cloud of chlorine and 'hairs on the floor' loathing.

UnquietDad · 09/05/2008 11:27

Centerparcs is definitely a place for water-babies as the "subtropical [snigger] swimming paradise" is the only thing you get to do for free. But you can do lots of other stuff.

themoon66 · 09/05/2008 23:36

yep.. for 'subtropical' read 'sub arctic'

lupo · 10/05/2008 20:20

hate it, thats why I pay a fortue for swimming lessons so I can hide in the cafe and watch from behind my cappucino...

Amey · 13/05/2008 13:07

Great thread - brings back so many horrible memories. But there is a payback..

One early June holiday in Spain we discovered the only heated pool in the hotel didn't have a shallow end. I sat on the sun lounger and watched my 4 year old DD climb into the pool. She was stopped by a concerned mum (chest high in lukewarm chlorine, two toddlers attached) who asked my DD where her arm bands were. My DD laughed 'don't have any', jumped into the deep water and confidently swam across the pool to play with her 6 year old brother. I smiled (somewhat smuggly) at the astonished mum and picked up my book.

Was that moment worth nearly 4 years of weekly swimming lessons?? It kinda was!!!

Enid · 13/05/2008 13:08

I love it

Flip

1 2 3 4 5

Swipe left for the next trending thread